Tuesday, February 16, 2010

play it again, sam

when I was 18, I had my first love triangle in berkeley, california at a co-op called the cloyne court hotel. this is a piece of the puzzle from someone else's point of view.

"... and so it was that five years after our first encounter, i was best friends with someone who could be described as being the bay area's most infamous smooth drunk talking indie god. and so it was that I came to sit on a couch on a typical drunken cloyne night with my best friend. had I been anyone else, I wouldn't have been sitting on the couch when you gave the "come-hither finger". had I not lived in cloyne, owen would most likely have been drunk at anywhere-but-cloyne on that night. but, of course we were there. and i have to admit that it is a little more than odd knowing that we both saw you at the same time. with that, if pressed to relate our first introduction to christina, our stories would no doubt sound similar. there we were. talking about music, booze, and women. I don't actually know if that's what we were discussing, but then, knowing us, that's exactly what we were talking about.

when suddenly, this blonde creature from across the room; sitting on her own couch with her own friend in her own through the looking glass version of mine and owen's little world, pleasantly shattered our goings-on by coolly rolling her finger to beckon the attention of two boys that were so lost in their perfectly normal tipsy banter that someone yelling "fire" couldn't have had more of an effect. there was no crazy man yelling "fire", though. that would've been too easy, too expected, and all together too dull to catch them off guard. but a woman. that's an entirely different situation, isn't it? both owen and I were looking up at someone whose motionings were, up until then, wholly unheard of. she was like a fiery draught filled to the brim of its glass with equal parts self-confidence and self-mockery. holding our drinks, we looked on, trying to understand the method behind what must obviously be madness; for we had only seen such cartoonish gestures in the movies or on television. holding our drinks, we both wonder who it is she's looking and motioning at. "is it me, rob?" "is it me, owen?" "is it both of us? or is it some drunk retard behind us with an aerosmith t-shirt on?" it's a brief wondering. so brief that only owen and I will ever know it happened. because owen and I are friends, you understand. and with such a friendship comes a mutual understanding of some kind of perfect equality that exists beyond the outside perceptions of those around us. the moment for confusion quickly evaporates like cigarette smoke on a windy day as the precedence of our past experiences re-colors our questions. of course we both know who she is drawing her gaze upon. of course we boths know it's owen, because tall blonde creatures with legs that never learned how to stop, and who live mostly on opposite sides of the room, are never the kind to single rob seretti out of a crowded environment. it is a dance that me and owen know all too well as I quickly take my leave and disappear to a place I don't remember.

it is a random enough moment. it is an odd way to have been introduced to you and it is an odd thing that our friendship (mine and yours) has lasted as long as it has. like my friendship with owen, this is one of those things that I do not wish to ever question or fully understand. I am sure that there is, between us, an entire bucket of seething worms that is better left alone. heaven forbid that those seething worms get loose of their bucket because no more good or ill than there already is could come of their release. under more common circumstances, I would relish the idea of bringing the unseen, unthought of, and unanalyzed to glorious light, but, this is not a common circumstance. uncommon individuals, such as ourselves, rarely create common situations. and the only real thing staying my foot from tipping over the bucket of worms is that I know that if I did, I wouldn't get very far in doing so because you'd be kicking the opposite side of it at exactly the same time. unlike most of the people I've met, I can't tell you about the unseen and unthought of and unanalyzed. there is not much I can tell you about the curious nature of our friendship that you don't already know and think about.

I assume that I will see you much earlier than I expected to, yet much later that I had hoped to.